


Sing Until Your Lungs Give Out

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Brotp, Character Study, Future Fic, Gen, Implied Slash, Karaoke, Stydia Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 05:26:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fewer people who know about her hobby the better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing Until Your Lungs Give Out

The closest one is in Redding, which is just under an hour and a half north of Beacon Hills, which works fine for her. The fewer people who know about her hobby, the better.

She only goes when she needs to escape it all, which translates to roughly two or three times a year. Shutting herself in a tiny dark back room of a dodgy Korean Karaoke bar has been better for her stress levels than every European Spa she’s ever been to, combined. Nobody knows Lydia Martin at BoomTown Karaoke. She’s not the prom queen. She’s not the girl who was possessed sophomore year. She’s not immune. She’s not the child of a broken home. She’s not perfect, popular, or most importantly, on pointe. Lydia would rather die before anyone found out her hobby. It’s the only thing in her life that’s truly hers.

To Mr. and Mrs. Myung, the owners, she’s just a girl who likes to sing Justin Beiber’s Baby badly at a 32” flatscreen with laugh out loud Korean soaps playing behind the lyrics to accompany the song. Mr. and Mrs. Myung don’t care about anything beyond her money, so for two hours when the world gets tough, Lydia Martin hides herself away in Redding, California and sings Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Brittany Speares - and she sings them badly. She sings off-key, off-tempo, and so piss-poor that not even auto-tune could save her shoddy rendition of ‘I’m A Genie In A Bottle’.

She’s been coming since she could drive. She found out about Korean Karaoke during that phase when she was fourteen where she watched a dozen K-Dramas back-to-back for a month solid before starting high school for ‘research’ purposes (which, subsequently, was also a phase that no one would ever find out about if she had her druthers). They were corny but informative, and they introduced her to her favorite hobby. 

Now, ten years later, she’s on sabbatical between her masters and her phD and dragging Stiles Fucking Stilinski to her sacred sanctuary. She never in her wildest dreams ever thought she’d share her most private secret with anyone, but Stiles has been a good friend since he got over his infatuation with her. He was perhaps the only person she could relax around, and since he was driving her fucking spare with his jittering and babbling, she decided that it was time. Stiles deserved to know - to be apart of her secret. 

“Lydia, um, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but why did you just drive two hours to go to a strip-mall? We have to be at the church in--”

“Shut up, Stilinski,” she cut him off. His stress was understandable, but he should trust her well enough to know she’d never let him miss his big day. “It wasn’t even an hour and a half and you’ll be back with three hours to spare.” She changed the subject and dragged his mind away from what was waiting for him back in Beacon Hills. “Anyway, I’m still of half a mind to force your signature onto an NDA, so just let me remind you that --”

“If anyone ever finds out about this trip or what happens during said trip, no one will ever find my body,” Stiles finishes succinctly, shifting in his seat and fingers sliding up and down the seat belt. She can’t stop the small smile she feels tugging at her lips. She knows she can trust Stiles, but it’s still entertaining to watch him squirm when she threatens him.

She leads them into the small front room where Mrs. Myung is reclining behind a counter and watching Dancing With The Stars. She knows not to disturb the woman until the dance is done, and watches Stiles out of the corner of her eye grow even more antsy at behavior that he no-doubt sees as out-of-character for her. And he’s right, sort of. But here her unassuming demeanor is just part of the experience, the relaxation. 

When the dance is over, Mrs. Myung shakes her head with frown and mutters something about lead feet. She looks at Lydia as though she’s never seen her before, but silently leads her to her preferred room. If Mrs. Myung thought it odd that Lydia had brought a guest for the first time ever, Lydia couldn’t tell. It was another reason she loved BoomTown. 

Stiles eyes are wide and in a semi-state of shock as he takes in the tacky posters of laminated Korean pop stars, beautiful petite models, and alcohol ads the Myungs’ have wallpapering the halls leading to the karaoke rooms as he follows her faithfully and without any voiced questions.

When the door shuts behind them and the karaoke machine and disco light above them turn on, Stiles gapes at her, silent, and quickly takes in all the details of the room. Always alert. She grins, feeling smug with the power to render him wrong-footed - a difficult thing to do considering their lives. She would never tell him, but she likes that she can still surprise him after all these years. 

She takes the liberty to queue up a song she knows Stiles loves and hands him one of the two mics sitting on a small table to the side. Stiles raises his eyebrow at her choice, but is still unnervingly silent. She flips her hair over her shoulder and gives him her favorite glare in an effort to return the equilibrium to his universe. “If you think for once second that I don’t know about your secret obsession with Kylie, then you’ve got another think coming.”

The opening beats of ‘The Locomotion’ start playing and the words pop up on the screen. The familiarity, anticipation, and excitement never fade, and Lydia allows a full-body wiggle as the music swells to her queue. She sings like Stiles isn’t in the room with her and sings like Antonio M. Reid is about to approach her to sign her to a five record contract.

The song is nearly half-over when Stiles regains his senses and starts singing along with her. He can carry a tune far better than her, and maybe if the night goes well enough, she’ll tell him; BoomTown-Lydia can do and say things Lydia Martin cannot. When the song finishes, his grin is wide and infectious, and some of the nervous tension he’d been carrying in his shoulders loosens. 

He knows her well enough to know better than to say anything, so he simply picks another song and looks to her for approval of his choice. She nods and when it’s time to sing, she happily pretends to be hotter than Madonna, because Lydia Martin knows Vogue better than Madonna ever will. 

Two hours later, Stiles stumbles from the parlor laughing, loose, and red-cheeked from the brightness of his smile. A warm feeling spreads through her chest and stomach, and she knows she’d made the right decision in allowing Stiles to share in her sanctuary. 

He buckles his seatbelt and looks out the window as he mutters the words, ‘thank you.’ Lydia’s fine with that; neither one of them are good with direct emotions or gratitude. “You ready to go get married?” She knows he is, would stop time for him if he wasn’t, but she wants to see the brightness of his smile one last time, knowing that it’s for her and her alone.

He doesn’t disappoint. He looks almost daffy when his smile is so huge and bright, but that’s what makes it special. “Don’t tell Scott, but I think I liked your bachelor outing more than his.”

Lydia smirks. Scott McCall may be Stiles’ best friend, but she knows him better than Scott ever will. She prides herself on being only second to Derek in the list of people who truly know Stiles -name redacted- Stilinski. “Obviously.”

She turns on her iPod and the two of them sang loudly all the way back to Beacon Hills.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [eljay](http://cornmouse.livejournal.com) and [tumblr](http://cornmouse.tumblr.com). Cheers!


End file.
